Olympian Erin Hamlin Never Ran More Than a Few Miles. Now She’s Training for a Marathon

Olympic luge medalist Erin Hamlin never imagined she’d run a marathon. Sure, she ran track in high school, but middle distance. She doesn’t ever remember running farther than three or four miles at a time.

And besides, Hamlin already had a sport of choice early on. She started training in luge at age 12, and by the time she was 15, she was already on the luge Junior World Cup tour.

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That was the start of an impressive career: She spent 13 years on the World Tour, winning four medals (two gold, two silver), competed in four Olympics—including the 2014 Sochi Winter Games, where she became the first American to medal in singles luge in Olympic history—and won six national championships. Plus, at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games, she was the Team USA flag bearer.

Erin Hamlin was the U.S. flag bearer at the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games.

Getty ImagesHarry How

But after almost two decades of luge, Hamlin is ready for a new challenge.

This week, she submitted the paperwork that made her retirement from luge official. Next week, she’s marrying Minnesota PE teacher Jonathan Hodge (who would probably be an Olympian in basketball trick shots, if the event existed). She’s exploring her next move professionally.

For someone who’s never run more than four miles at a time, it seems like an odd choice. But signing up for the race wasn’t exactly her idea.

She was approached by the Women’s Sports Foundation (WSF), a national nonprofit founded by Billie Jean King in 1974 to promote female participation and achievement in sports. Initially, she wavered at the daunting task of running 26.2 miles in one go. But after WSF redoubled its efforts to woo her, she agreed to join the foundation’s five member team, which also includes Olympic boxing medalist Marlen Esparza, Olympic cross-country skier Anne Hart, pro rock climber Sasha DiGiulian, and filmmaker Adam Reist.

As much as I say I’m not competitive in it, I’m an athlete, I need something to reach for

The goal is to raise funds and awareness for the WSF, and each runner has their own online fundraising page. Hamlin has already raised over $1,200 of her $8,000 goal.

With the marathon just over three months away, Hamlin has already begun prepping. She’s in the first weeks of her Nike+ running app training plan—running three or four times a week, five or six miles each run, in a pair of Nike Pegasus 35s.

Almost all of it is new to her, especially how easy it is to just get out there and just train.

For American lugers, geography is extremely limited. Conditions and facilities must be just right, and the only place in the United States to practice the start of a run is the winter sports mecca of Lake Placid, New York.

So when Hamlin was competing in luge, she needed to plan her entire schedule around her training. Now she can lace up and already be jogging before the door swings shut behind her.

“I can’t just go out and slide. It’s much more complicated,” Hamlin says. “It’s been refreshing to just be able to jump out and run.”

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Running on the country roads of upstate New York, Hamlin has found a new sense of freedom. Her parents live roughly five miles away, and the idea that she can cover that distance on foot is incredible, she says.

Physically, Hamlin describes running as the “complete opposite end of the spectrum” from what she’s dedicated most of her life to—luge training and racing. “There is zero carry-over between the two,” she says.

Luge is all about gaining advantages measured in milliseconds—it’s one of the most precisely timed sports out there. One run is done in about 45 seconds. Leg muscles, beyond staying fit and toned, are a non-factor. Endurance capacity even less so. Contrast that to a marathon, which takes hours to complete.

But Hamlin still has one advantage over the average marathon runner: She’s already an Olympian, meaning she basically has a Ph.D. in training for success. She knows how to set a goal, and then put in the work to achieve it.

“As much as I say I’m not competitive in it, I’m an athlete, I need something to reach for,” she says.

Still, the learning curve has been steep: “I am a total newbie at this stuff,” Hamlin admits. And sometimes runs feel “absolutely terrible.” But through the advice of her fiancé and friends, she’s learning.

Hamlin predicts she won’t be completing any more marathons after this. But running in general? It just might stick, as long as she doesn’t have to go so far.

“5Ks are like my jam,” she says. It’s the right balance of distance and speed, where she feels her grit and determination can truly go to work before mind-numbing, hours-long fatigue sets in.

In the end, it comes down to a world-class athlete taking on a new challenge the only way she knows how: the best she can.

Hamlin hasn’t decided on a target race time yet. But that doesn't matter as much to her as the opportunity to use her elite levels of focus and determination to raise money and awareness for a good cause: “If running a few hundred miles is all it takes, I’m game!”

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